There is a great scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian where Brian’s Mum and all the other women in his town buy false beards and begin speaking in low tones so that they can pretend to be men and therefore can go to the public stoning. In that scene, the women’s enthusiasm to be present at the stoning and to cast the first stone is symptomatic of our desire to scapegoat other people. We love nothing better, they were saying, than to single out a victim, gang up on that person and see them abused or killed.
We see this happening in our schools when children are bullied. We see it in politics when a party like the BNP succeeds in local elections by persuading people that all their problems are caused by refugees and asylum seekers.
A teacher at the Asian Friendship Centre in Forest Gate, a project supported by the Church Urban Fund, gives just one example from many, of “A young man from Pakistan had limited English. He was laughed at in school and was very lonely.” Forest Gate has high levels of poverty, unemployment and crime, which leave many locally feeling isolated from mainstream society - scapegoated. As a base for social gatherings and employment and educational support, the Asian Friendship Centre is a vital resource which helps to make local people feel a welcome part of their community.
The Church Urban Fund has also been actively involved in the Poverty and Homelessness Week which has just ended. Alison Gelder, Chief Executive of Housing Justice, said: “Churches rightly pay lots of attention to poverty and hunger in the third world but often fail to appreciate the extent of the problem at home … [It is] a scandal that in this the fifth biggest economy in the world more than one in five people are living in poverty … For most people in poverty in Britain it is not about literally being homeless or having no money but about not being able to fully participate in society.”
People at the margins of society such as families having to endure cramped overcrowded accommodation, asylum seekers who are suffering destitution, disabled people having to live in inappropriate housing and families forced into debt in order to afford everyday items, end up being scapegoats for the rest of society.
So the Pythons were right when we look around our world we see many examples of a rush to scapegoat other people. What do our Bible readings have to say to us about this very human tendency?
In our Gospel reading (John 8. 1-11), Jesus is faced with a dilemma involving a scapegoat. A woman has been caught in adultery, the Law of Moses says that she should be stoned, and the teachers of the law bring her to Jesus and ask him what they should do.
The woman is a scapegoat because she has been singled out. It is she, not her partner in adultery, which has been brought before Jesus. And it is she that has been singled out, not any other of the men or women in that place who might have committed adultery.
How does Jesus respond? He says that anyone there who has never sinned should be the one to cast the first stone and begin the stoning. One by one, everyone in the crowd leaves because no one has never sinned. Each of us is a sinner and, therefore, none of us are in a place where we can honestly judge another person. That other person is guilty of sinning but so are we, how then can we judge them?
The one person in that situation who had a right to cast the first stone because he was without sin was Jesus. And he says, “I do not condemn you.” In verse 15 of chapter 8, Jesus says, “You make judgments in a purely human way; I pass judgment on no one.”
This is a crystal clear statement from Jesus about our tendency to scapegoat others. Because of our sin, we cannot in all conscience condemn another person and God himself does not condemn or judge either. Jesus makes it plain and clear that scapegoating others is wrong in every circumstance.
Lent prepares us for Easter and at Easter we remember that God himself became a scapegoat when he was nailed to the cross for the sins of the whole world. Jesus became the ultimate scapegoat in order that there should be no more scapegoating because his death shows us clear and plain that God accepts and forgives all people.
Often, we prepare ourselves during Lent for Easter by giving something up. This is a form of fasting but it is not meant to be focused on ourselves, like a diet is as we try to lose wait. Instead fasting or self denial should be focused outside of ourselves.
The reading from Isaiah (58. 1-12) says that the kind of fasting that God wants is for us to “remove the chains of oppression and the yoke of injustice, and let the oppressed go free.” As those who follow God, we should actively work for the relief of those who are scapegoated in our world. The two things can go together as, by denying ourselves luxuries during Lent, we can release money to go to those who have been scapegoated here and in other parts of the world.
If we were to give up having a bag of crisps or a bar of chocolate a day, by the end of Lent we could give £12. If we were to give up a bottle of wine once a week, we could give £20. If we gave up meals out during Lent, we could give £50 and if we gave up unnecessary luxuries in our weekly family shop, we could give £100. So, let’s use our Lent appeal for the Church Urban Fund, our Lent lunch and the other Lent information and ideas around to think about the ways in which we can give to the relief of oppression in our world this Lent.
But the kind of fasting that God calls for, the ending of scapegoating, isn’t just about giving financially. It is also about the ending of scapegoating in our own lives and communities. It means addressing the issues of bullying, in and out of school, among young people. It means resisting the calls of those, like the BNP, who want us to scapegoat asylum seekers and refugees instead of providing the welcome for which the Bible calls. It means living out hospitality and welcome to those of other faiths in our local community, as we will be discussing in our evening Lent course. Let us give willingly and joyfully to relive oppression in our country and throughout our world but let us not use that as a reason to avoid the challenges to counter scapegoating that arise in our own community as well.
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Living Colour - Solace Of You.
Wednesday, 6 February 2008
Tuesday, 5 February 2008
Allusive & elusive (1)
In his re-issued lay essay in theology, Experience and Religion, the novelist Nicholas Mosley has argued that modern works of art commonly reflect both the chaos of our world and our sense of helplessness about this chaos. The problem, he suggests, is our lack of a language in which to express our common experience of life. “This common experience,” he suggests, “is partly simply that there is an enormous amount of joy, energy, order, significance in the world that does not get expressed by artists and thinkers of any subtlety now, and which gets hopelessly vulgarised by those with none.”[i]
“What is required is a way of thinking which will take account of both the hope and hopelessness, responsibility and helplessness, the good not in spite of but together with the evil.”[ii]: “Because of its very complexity it will not be something argued, reasoned in a straight line as it were; but something of attempts, flashes, allusions – a to-and-fro between a person and whatever he has to do and to discover. What it will be saying will not be part of a comprehensive system but things-on-their-own, parables, paradoxes; the connections between which will have to be held and understood with difficulty, not justified.”[iii]
Mosley notes that both art and religion were once to do with such significance, meaning and connections and that lively religious languages have in fact been artistic languages; with religion being written in poems, parables and stories. He calls for a revival of religious and artistic languages that are “elusive, allusive; not didactic,” dealing with the patterns, connections, that facts and units of data, together with the minds that observe them, make. By this, he thinks, seeming opposites might be held from a higher point of view and “errors accepted as the purveyors of learning rather than traps.”[iv]
In this series I want to take up Mosley’s plea and suggest that just such a language can be found both in the form and content of the Bible and in the religious art of Marc Chagall, T.S. Eliot, and David Jones.
[i] N. Mosley, Experience and Religion, Dalkey Archive Press, London, 2006, p.17.
[ii] Ibid, p.18.
[iii] Ibid, p.19.
[iv] Ibid. pps.88 & 89.
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Gordon Gano - Rejoice And Be Happy.
“What is required is a way of thinking which will take account of both the hope and hopelessness, responsibility and helplessness, the good not in spite of but together with the evil.”[ii]: “Because of its very complexity it will not be something argued, reasoned in a straight line as it were; but something of attempts, flashes, allusions – a to-and-fro between a person and whatever he has to do and to discover. What it will be saying will not be part of a comprehensive system but things-on-their-own, parables, paradoxes; the connections between which will have to be held and understood with difficulty, not justified.”[iii]
Mosley notes that both art and religion were once to do with such significance, meaning and connections and that lively religious languages have in fact been artistic languages; with religion being written in poems, parables and stories. He calls for a revival of religious and artistic languages that are “elusive, allusive; not didactic,” dealing with the patterns, connections, that facts and units of data, together with the minds that observe them, make. By this, he thinks, seeming opposites might be held from a higher point of view and “errors accepted as the purveyors of learning rather than traps.”[iv]
In this series I want to take up Mosley’s plea and suggest that just such a language can be found both in the form and content of the Bible and in the religious art of Marc Chagall, T.S. Eliot, and David Jones.
[i] N. Mosley, Experience and Religion, Dalkey Archive Press, London, 2006, p.17.
[ii] Ibid, p.18.
[iii] Ibid, p.19.
[iv] Ibid. pps.88 & 89.
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Gordon Gano - Rejoice And Be Happy.
Monday, 4 February 2008
Engaging with perennial big questions
The latest issue of Art and Christianity has arrived today featuring an interview with Meryl Doney, Director of the Wallspace Gallery based in All Hallows on the Wall, which includes this positive take on the extent to which contemporary artists are interested in engaging with the "perennial big questions":
"I was surprised and delighted by the overwhelmingly positive responses I have received from artists. Despite the prevalent idea that we are a secular culture that has turned its back on religious possibilities, contemporary artists are still at a profound level wanting to tackle issues of human identity, meaning and the transcendent. Yes, there is a lot of thin, ironic, one-look art out there, preoccupied with show and gloss or shock. But you don't have to look far to find people who are genuinely asking questions about the real, or who are fascinated by the numinous, longing for something beyond the merely material. And it's more than simply playing art historical games with Christian iconography. It's engagement with the perennial big questions. That's what's exciting and that's what we're there for."
One such artist is Oona Grimes, whose Conversations with Angels exhibition I have reviewed for this edition of Art & Christianity. Grimes’ collages present us with the dilemma of belief; a frame of reference, a history, a set of images and writings which suggest a pattern for perceiving life but with faith the additional element required to complete the picture. In these collages what is not depicted or signed is at least as significant as what is.
Finally, from the information accompanying the magazine, In Other People's Skins is an interactive artwork by Terry Flaxton inspired by Leonardo Da Vinci's The Last Supper and which can be seen at Cathedrals and Abbeys between February and June 2008.
It consists of a large table covered in a white cloth and surrounded by chairs. Projected from above onto the white surface will be life size moving images of hands and arms (12 people) as they take food, break the bread, drink the wine. Visitors to the installation will be free to sit down at one of the 12 chairs and interact with the virtual guests - and to inhabit Other People's Skins.
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Rickie Lee Jones - Nobody Knows My Name.
"I was surprised and delighted by the overwhelmingly positive responses I have received from artists. Despite the prevalent idea that we are a secular culture that has turned its back on religious possibilities, contemporary artists are still at a profound level wanting to tackle issues of human identity, meaning and the transcendent. Yes, there is a lot of thin, ironic, one-look art out there, preoccupied with show and gloss or shock. But you don't have to look far to find people who are genuinely asking questions about the real, or who are fascinated by the numinous, longing for something beyond the merely material. And it's more than simply playing art historical games with Christian iconography. It's engagement with the perennial big questions. That's what's exciting and that's what we're there for."
One such artist is Oona Grimes, whose Conversations with Angels exhibition I have reviewed for this edition of Art & Christianity. Grimes’ collages present us with the dilemma of belief; a frame of reference, a history, a set of images and writings which suggest a pattern for perceiving life but with faith the additional element required to complete the picture. In these collages what is not depicted or signed is at least as significant as what is.
Finally, from the information accompanying the magazine, In Other People's Skins is an interactive artwork by Terry Flaxton inspired by Leonardo Da Vinci's The Last Supper and which can be seen at Cathedrals and Abbeys between February and June 2008.
It consists of a large table covered in a white cloth and surrounded by chairs. Projected from above onto the white surface will be life size moving images of hands and arms (12 people) as they take food, break the bread, drink the wine. Visitors to the installation will be free to sit down at one of the 12 chairs and interact with the virtual guests - and to inhabit Other People's Skins.
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Rickie Lee Jones - Nobody Knows My Name.
Cafe Night/Games Evening photos
Photos from the Cafe Night/Games Evening at St John's Seven Kings on Saturday 2nd February.-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Shawn McDonald - All I Need.
Pastoral presence
Ven. Elwin Cockett (Archdeacon of West Ham and Chaplain to West Ham United FC) speaking at the Men's Breakfast held at St John's Seven Kings on Saturday 2nd February. Saturday's Men's Breakfast at St John's was very well attended with men coming from St John's, St Laurence's, St Andrew's and the United Free Church to enjoy a cooked breakfast and the Archdeacon's presentation.
In his talk Elwin Cockett told the story of how, as an ardent Hammers fan, he had had the idea of becoming chaplain to West Ham while training for ordination. In describing his role at the club he spoke about his involvements with players, managers and backroom staff and gave his views on current issues within the game.
Elwin's role at the club is a pastoral one and he spoke with real understanding of the various pressures (financial and media, among others) faced by players, managers and staff. He gave a fascinating insight into the way in which a chaplain can be a pastoral presence in a high pressure environment.
Elwin's role at the club is a pastoral one and he spoke with real understanding of the various pressures (financial and media, among others) faced by players, managers and staff. He gave a fascinating insight into the way in which a chaplain can be a pastoral presence in a high pressure environment.
We had a great response to the event in terms of people coming and interest in Elwin's talk and will, as a result, organise more Men's Breakfasts in future.
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West Ham fans - I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles.
Sunday, 3 February 2008
The Temple of the Living God
In this evening's service at St John's we reflected on the place of the Temple in Christianity following readings from Haggai 2. 1-9 and John 2. 18-22.
Extracts from the writings of Margaret Barker led into a song by Neal Morse from his ? album:
“A temple stood in Jerusalem for over a thousand years. According to the biblical account, the first temple was built by Solomon about 950 BCE and was severely damaged by the Babylonians about 350 years later. It was rebuilt towards the end of the sixth century BCE by people who returned from exile in Babylon, and was rebuilt again by Herod the Great at the end of the first century BCE. The structure was finally destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE, but the influence of the temple and its world has far outlasted its physical existence.
Jesus would have known Herod’s temple and he prophesied its destruction. Not one stone of it, he said, would be left standing (Mark 13. 2). From this we might assume that Jesus was opposed to the temple, but in fact … the world of the temple was the world of the first Christians, and they expressed their faith in terms drawn almost exclusively from the temple. Jesus and his followers opposed what the temple had become; they identified themselves as the true temple, with Jesus as the great high priest.
When Jesus was arrested by the temple authorities, one of the charges brought against him was threatening to destroy the temple and to rebuild it in three days (Mark 14. 58). Another was claiming to be the Messiah (Matt. 26. 63-64). These were two aspects of the same charge, as can be deduced from the Book of Enoch, a text which the early Christians regarded as Scripture. The Book of Enoch described the judgement of the fallen angels, and then how the Lord of the sheep would carry away the old temple and set up something greater in its place (1 Enoch 90. 28-29). This is the reason for the two questions at Jesus’ trial: Did you claim that you would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days? Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One? This same passage accounts for the exchange between Jesus and the Jews recorded in John 2. 19-21: ‘Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?”’ Later reflection led the evangelist to add, ‘But he spoke of the temple of his body’. Jesus was claiming the prophecy of Enoch, that he was the Lord of the sheep who would destroy and rebuild the temple …”
“The Temple was a model of the creation, and the liturgy of the temple preserved the creation. Genesis 1 was not an account of the historical process of creation, but a record of the great vision granted to Moses and others of how the world is made. In the six days when Moses was on Sinai, before the LORD called to him (Exod. 24.16), he saw the six days of creation, and was then told to replicate these when he built the tabernacle …
The holy of holies represented Day One, the state of the angels … The veil of the temple represented the second day, and the table with bread, wine and incense was the third day, when the plants were created. The seven branched lamp represented the lights of heaven created on the fourth day, the altar of sacrifice represented the non human creatures, and the High Priest was the human, male and female as the image of God … The Second Adam [Jesus] was the Great High Priest, and if we are the body of Christ, we all have this high priestly role.”
“Jesus was … [the] great high priest (Heb. 4.14) … raised up by the power of an indestructible life (Heb. 7.16) who had offered the final atonement sacrifice to fulfil and supersede the temple rites (Heb. 9.1-14).” Atonement was the ritual self offering of the Lord to renew the eternal covenant and thus heal the creation. This is what Jesus’ death achieved and is the covenant renewed at the Last Supper.
In this way the New Testament reverses the story of Eden and brings Christians back to the original Temple meaning that the “kingdom of which Jesus spoke was the state of the holy of holies, the unity at the heart of all things which secured the eternal covenant … This must be the original context for ‘Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven’ and for ‘This is my blood of the covenant, poured out for many for the putting away of sins’ (Matt. 26. 28).”
Inside His Presence
And in this place of gold [1 Kings 7:50]
The ancients walked this road
There is no death [2 Tim 1:10]
There is no time [Ecc 3:15]
There is a love unknown [1 Pet 1:8]
There is a scent of home
A rainbow wreath [Rev 4:3]
A blazing throne
From a grave of stone to a world unknown
From the smoke and ash comes true life at last [Isa 61:3]
Among earth and sod
the very life of God is here [Rom 8:11]
From a list of laws seeing all our flaws [Rom 8:3]
To the blind, the lame, we are all the same [Acts 10:34]
Our High Priest has come to make us all as one in Him [Gal 3:28]
The temple of his throne [Acts 7:48]
Is now not made with stone
Your very heart is now his home [1 Cor 3:16]
He will come and live if you’ll only give [John 14:23]
Him a place inside that the world can’t buy
And the Holy Place is now face to face in Christ [Heb 9:24]
When he died and was born the temple walls were torn [Mat 27:51]
And God’s Spirit poured out to all the ones without
Now the temple of the living God is you [Eph 2:21]
The temple of the living God is you [Rev 3:12, 1 Pet 2:5]
The Temple of the Living God
And then after all with our backs against the wall
We seek the temple of the living God
And now that it’s done the heart of every one [2 Cor 6:16]
Can be the temple of the living God
Can be the temple of the living God [Rev 21:3]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Neal Morse - Solid as the Sun.
Extracts from the writings of Margaret Barker led into a song by Neal Morse from his ? album:
“A temple stood in Jerusalem for over a thousand years. According to the biblical account, the first temple was built by Solomon about 950 BCE and was severely damaged by the Babylonians about 350 years later. It was rebuilt towards the end of the sixth century BCE by people who returned from exile in Babylon, and was rebuilt again by Herod the Great at the end of the first century BCE. The structure was finally destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE, but the influence of the temple and its world has far outlasted its physical existence.
Jesus would have known Herod’s temple and he prophesied its destruction. Not one stone of it, he said, would be left standing (Mark 13. 2). From this we might assume that Jesus was opposed to the temple, but in fact … the world of the temple was the world of the first Christians, and they expressed their faith in terms drawn almost exclusively from the temple. Jesus and his followers opposed what the temple had become; they identified themselves as the true temple, with Jesus as the great high priest.
When Jesus was arrested by the temple authorities, one of the charges brought against him was threatening to destroy the temple and to rebuild it in three days (Mark 14. 58). Another was claiming to be the Messiah (Matt. 26. 63-64). These were two aspects of the same charge, as can be deduced from the Book of Enoch, a text which the early Christians regarded as Scripture. The Book of Enoch described the judgement of the fallen angels, and then how the Lord of the sheep would carry away the old temple and set up something greater in its place (1 Enoch 90. 28-29). This is the reason for the two questions at Jesus’ trial: Did you claim that you would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days? Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One? This same passage accounts for the exchange between Jesus and the Jews recorded in John 2. 19-21: ‘Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?”’ Later reflection led the evangelist to add, ‘But he spoke of the temple of his body’. Jesus was claiming the prophecy of Enoch, that he was the Lord of the sheep who would destroy and rebuild the temple …”
“The Temple was a model of the creation, and the liturgy of the temple preserved the creation. Genesis 1 was not an account of the historical process of creation, but a record of the great vision granted to Moses and others of how the world is made. In the six days when Moses was on Sinai, before the LORD called to him (Exod. 24.16), he saw the six days of creation, and was then told to replicate these when he built the tabernacle …
The holy of holies represented Day One, the state of the angels … The veil of the temple represented the second day, and the table with bread, wine and incense was the third day, when the plants were created. The seven branched lamp represented the lights of heaven created on the fourth day, the altar of sacrifice represented the non human creatures, and the High Priest was the human, male and female as the image of God … The Second Adam [Jesus] was the Great High Priest, and if we are the body of Christ, we all have this high priestly role.”
“Jesus was … [the] great high priest (Heb. 4.14) … raised up by the power of an indestructible life (Heb. 7.16) who had offered the final atonement sacrifice to fulfil and supersede the temple rites (Heb. 9.1-14).” Atonement was the ritual self offering of the Lord to renew the eternal covenant and thus heal the creation. This is what Jesus’ death achieved and is the covenant renewed at the Last Supper.
In this way the New Testament reverses the story of Eden and brings Christians back to the original Temple meaning that the “kingdom of which Jesus spoke was the state of the holy of holies, the unity at the heart of all things which secured the eternal covenant … This must be the original context for ‘Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven’ and for ‘This is my blood of the covenant, poured out for many for the putting away of sins’ (Matt. 26. 28).”
Inside His Presence
And in this place of gold [1 Kings 7:50]
The ancients walked this road
There is no death [2 Tim 1:10]
There is no time [Ecc 3:15]
There is a love unknown [1 Pet 1:8]
There is a scent of home
A rainbow wreath [Rev 4:3]
A blazing throne
From a grave of stone to a world unknown
From the smoke and ash comes true life at last [Isa 61:3]
Among earth and sod
the very life of God is here [Rom 8:11]
From a list of laws seeing all our flaws [Rom 8:3]
To the blind, the lame, we are all the same [Acts 10:34]
Our High Priest has come to make us all as one in Him [Gal 3:28]
The temple of his throne [Acts 7:48]
Is now not made with stone
Your very heart is now his home [1 Cor 3:16]
He will come and live if you’ll only give [John 14:23]
Him a place inside that the world can’t buy
And the Holy Place is now face to face in Christ [Heb 9:24]
When he died and was born the temple walls were torn [Mat 27:51]
And God’s Spirit poured out to all the ones without
Now the temple of the living God is you [Eph 2:21]
The temple of the living God is you [Rev 3:12, 1 Pet 2:5]
The Temple of the Living God
And then after all with our backs against the wall
We seek the temple of the living God
And now that it’s done the heart of every one [2 Cor 6:16]
Can be the temple of the living God
Can be the temple of the living God [Rev 21:3]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Neal Morse - Solid as the Sun.
Poems of bereavement
I've just had a short piece about the poems I posted on this blog, which were inspired by my recent experience of bereavement, published in the Artisans Newsletter from Veritasse.
These poems, which some regular readers of this blog have described as "powerful" and "beautiful", have already proved helpful to others facing bereavement. Written in a confessional style, the pain of waiting for death and the remembrance of the one who has died are two of themes that emerge from the sequence.
As regular readers of this blog know, my father suffered a cardiac arrest following brain surgery and never regained consciousness over the six weeks from that event to his death. In one sense we lost him from the moment he had the cardiac arrest but waited with him for the inevitable end. We experienced the onset of grief while he was physically still with us and prayed for his death to be peaceful and swift. One of the ways in which I coped with the extremes of emotion we felt, as a family and individually, was to write these poems about my experience and to post them on my blog together with information about the inspirational person my father had been. I know that these posts and poems have already been of help to at least one other person in similar circumstances and hope that others will also be able to identify with them.
My father was a pioneer of community work in the UK who, in later life, applied this knowledge and experience in urban ministry. He was a man of commitment and integrity throughout his life and is, without doubt, the person from whom I have learnt the most. It is my hope that through these poems and posts his life and death will continue to inspire and minister to others.
The article was accompanied by The Stature of Waiting and Our Lives Contracted. Both of which can be read in their original contexts by clicking here and here.
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Henryk Górecki - Amen.
These poems, which some regular readers of this blog have described as "powerful" and "beautiful", have already proved helpful to others facing bereavement. Written in a confessional style, the pain of waiting for death and the remembrance of the one who has died are two of themes that emerge from the sequence.
As regular readers of this blog know, my father suffered a cardiac arrest following brain surgery and never regained consciousness over the six weeks from that event to his death. In one sense we lost him from the moment he had the cardiac arrest but waited with him for the inevitable end. We experienced the onset of grief while he was physically still with us and prayed for his death to be peaceful and swift. One of the ways in which I coped with the extremes of emotion we felt, as a family and individually, was to write these poems about my experience and to post them on my blog together with information about the inspirational person my father had been. I know that these posts and poems have already been of help to at least one other person in similar circumstances and hope that others will also be able to identify with them.
My father was a pioneer of community work in the UK who, in later life, applied this knowledge and experience in urban ministry. He was a man of commitment and integrity throughout his life and is, without doubt, the person from whom I have learnt the most. It is my hope that through these poems and posts his life and death will continue to inspire and minister to others.
The article was accompanied by The Stature of Waiting and Our Lives Contracted. Both of which can be read in their original contexts by clicking here and here.
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Henryk Górecki - Amen.
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